Trump tries to win over Black voters with $500B ‘platinum plan’
The president calls for Congress to make 'Juneteenth' a holiday, and prioritize criminal justice reform.
President Donald Trump rolled out his “Platinum Plan” for Black Americans during a summit in Atlanta, Georgia on Friday.
The plan aims to invest $500 billion in Black communities. Trump did not disclose how the plan will be funded but he vows to create 500,000 new Black-owned businesses, 3 million new jobs for the Black community, and designate the KKK and Antifa as terrorist organizations, NPR reports.
The “Platinum Plan” states that it will “prosecute the KKK and ANTIFA as terrorist organizations and make lynching a national hate crime.”
The plan also calls for Congress to make “Juneteenth” a holiday, and prioritize criminal justice reform.
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In a statement released to theGrio, the Biden campaign’s Director of Strategic Communications Kamau Marshall said:
“In 2016, President Trump asked Black Americans “What the hell do you have to lose?” The answer was everything. President Trump has been in office for nearly 4 years and the results have been devastating for Black Americans. Trump lied about the danger of COVID-19 and failed to contain the virus and tens of thousands of Black Americans have lost their lives. More than 1.5 million additional Black Americans are unemployed than at the same time last year and 400,000 small businesses have closed because of the economic fallout from the crisis. Now with 39 days to the election, Trump is making more empty promises. Black voters won’t fall for it. They know that Vice President Biden and Senator Harris are the candidates in the race with a real plan to create jobs, address racial equity, close the racial wealth and income gaps, and lower health care costs. And, while President Trump fans the flames of race and division, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will bring Americans together to advance racial equity and root out systemic racism.”
Critics have noted that lawmakers have already introduced much of Trump’s plan or it has been opposed by his own officials.
Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif. introduced legislation over the summer to make Juneteenth a national holiday, theGRIO previously reported.
“Together with my colleagues Cory Booker, Tina Smith, and Ed Market, we are proposing that Juneteenth be a national holiday,” Harris said in June. “And we are dropping that bill saying that Juneteenth should be a national holiday.”
Her announcement, delivered on MSNBC’s AM Joy, was made on the same day that Republican Senator John Cornyn released a statement also supporting the creation of a national holiday marking the end of the enslavement of Africans in America.
Harris’ lynching legislation has been repeatedly stalled by Trump loyalist Sen. Rand Paul.
Trump, who won 8% of the Black vote in 2016, aims to woo Black voters ahead of the election with his “Platinum Plan.”
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“When I ran for president four years ago, I looked at the shameful record of the Democrat party, and asked black Americans, ‘What the hell do you have to lose?’” Trump told the crowd in Atlanta on Friday. “I want to share what you have to gain from voting Republican on November 3rd – the biggest election of our lives. For decades, Democrat politicians like Joe Biden have taken Black voters for granted.”
Meanwhile, news of Trump’s “Platinum Plan” is being met with the side eye among activists and media influencers.
Popular YouTuber Professor Black Truth noted, “Trump’s “Plan” for Black America is mostly hot air,” he wrote on Twitter. “The KKK is largely a relic, with the WS having moved onto other groups, whom Trump makes no promises to prosecute! But it’s worth mentioning that someone is now mentioning black people specifically. A shame he’s not serious,” he added.
Filmmaker Tariq Nasheed also pointed out that the “Trump Platinum Plan for Black America, where he wants to designate the “KKK and Antifa” as “terrorist groups”, is filled with bait & switch trick bag language. It starts off using the word Black…And when you get to the fine print, it switches to “minority” (ie white women),” he wrote on Twitter.
In a separate tweet he wrote, “Unfortunately Trump’s Platinum Plan for Black people has the same trick bag “minority” language when you start reading the fine print. So this is yet another nothing burger.”
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